By CANDACE RONDEAUX, Times Staff WriterFrank Bolin says he regrets keeping silent for years after Oscar Ray Bolin told him about the slaying in 1986.
Published October 7, 2005
TAMPA - Frank Bolin will always regret the silence. He'll always wonder why he didn't say something sooner about the night his cousin said he killed Natalie Blanche Holley.
Nearly 20 years have passed since he and Oscar Ray Bolin Jr. drove past the Church's Chicken where Holley, 25, worked before her bludgeoned body was found in a Lutz orange grove. There's a lot he has forgotten since then. But his memory of what the convicted killer said to him that night in January 1986 is crystal clear.
"He told me he did that girl," Frank Bolin said Thursday.
He thought he was joking. When Bolin started to tell his cousin more than he wanted to know, Frank Bolin stopped him short.
"I said, "Ray, it's not funny,' " he said. "If I had thought he was serious, I would have called the authorities."
Instead Frank Bolin lived with the secret for years. But after sitting on the sidelines for Oscar Ray Bolin's seven previous trials, Bolin's cousin broke his silence Thursday at his eighth murder trial. He told the jury it wasn't until four years after Holley's murder on Jan. 25, 1986, that he finally told detectives what he knew about Bolin's involvement.
"I thought it was a sick joke, and I just didn't want to hear it. It wasn't a joking matter," he said.
It was no joking matter for Bolin's ex-wife, Cheryl Jo Coby, either. Coby died of diabetes complications several years after the murder, but prosecutors played a tape of her testimony from a previous trial Thursday. Jurors listened to a distorted recording of Coby explaining how she kept silent about what had happened for years.
In July 1990, she told investigators what she knew after her then-husband Daniel Coby called in an anonymous tip from their home in Indiana. She said she and Bolin sat parked in their Pontiac Grand Prix across from the Church's Chicken for nearly an hour on the night Holley was abducted after she closed the restaurant. After that the couple returned to their mobile home about a half-mile away, watched the news and went to bed.
Things took a strange turn around 2 a.m. when Coby woke to see Bolin changing out of a pair of bloody Traxx tennis shoes in the bathroom. Then he dumped the contents of a woman's purse on their waterbed, took money out of the wallet, pocketed a bottle of pills and told Coby to get ready to go. They drove to Lake Magdalene Boulevard and Smitter Road where Bolin wiped down the inside of Holley's abandoned 1972 Dodge Dart, Coby testified. Bolin chucked the bloody shoes and the purse out the window as they drove down the highway, Coby said.
But on the tape, one of Bolin's previous defense attorneys raised doubts about Coby's account, pointing out that diabetes had caused Coby to go legally blind around the same time the murder occurred.
Prosecutors tried to bolster their case further when they called on an FBI forensic expert, who testified that reddish-maroon fibers found on Holley's pants matched a sample taken from the back seat of Bolin's Grand Prix four years after the murder.
During cross-examination, however, Bolin's attorney, David Parry, pointed out that the fibers could have come from any number sources. Parry later noted that fingerprint analysis on Holley's Dodge Dart turned up seven matches for Holley and three unknown prints.
Bolin was convicted of killing Holley and sentenced to death in 1991. He was also convicted in the 1986 murders of Stephanie Anne Collins, 17, and Teri Lynn Matthews, 26. But all three cases were overturned and retried. Last year, the Florida Supreme Court upheld Bolin's conviction for Matthews' murder, 18 years after the bank clerk's body was found in Pasco County.
Outside the courtroom Thursday, Frank Bolin talked quietly with the three victims' mothers. He hugged Matthews' mother and recalled with tears in his eyes how he'd gone to middle school with her years before Bolin kidnapped her and stabbed her to death. He then turned to Holley's mother and asked her to forgive him for remaining silent for so long.
Afterward, Natalie Holley, 80, said she was relieved he came forward and testified.
"I thought he did well. Afterwards he apologized to us and he was remorseful. That means a lot because I haven't heard a word of remorse," Holley said.
Both sides rested their case Thursday. Closing arguments are scheduled for this morning. The jury could reach a verdict today.
